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The Religious Belief 
of Shakespeare 



The Religious Belief 
of Shakespeare 



Rev. John Donnan Countermi7iey D.D, 

Philadelphia, Penn. 




New York Chicago Toronto 

Fleming H. Revell Company 

London and Edinburgh 



Copyright, 1906, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 

Two Copies Received 

NOV 14 1906 

Copyrlarht Entry 

CUSS CL XXc.iNo. 

/ 6 6~ 4 6 

COPY B. 



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The Religious Belief 
of Shakespeare 

'^ / believed J and therefore have 1 
spoken.^ ^ Did Shakespeare believe? 
If he believed, did he speak ? If he 
spoke, did he speak so as to be under- 
stood ? Can we, from what he said, 
discover his religious belief ? What is 
it to believe ? What are the mental 
and spiritual faculties that are brought 
into exercise when a person believes ? 

Looking at the word believe in the 
light of a clear analysis, we discover 
that it has, first, a receptive capacity. 
^' Christ came unto His own, and His 
own received Him not, but as many as 
received Him, to them gave He power 
to become the sons of God, even to 
them that believe on His name/' 
[5] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

John 1:11, 12. Here the words be- 
lieve and receive are used inter- 
changeably. To receive is to believe. 
To believe is to receive. When a per- 
son believes, according to this analyt- 
ical conception of the word, he re- 
ceives something which he did not 
have before. A new element or force 
enters into his life which more or less 
influences him one way or another. 
Thus to believe on Christ is to receive 
Christ in His threefold office, as a 
prophet, priest, and king. Did 
Shakespeare do this ? Did he receive 
Christ? What attitude did he take 
towards the Bible ? The Bible is the 
great text-book of Christianity. Did 
he believe the Bible and thus receive 
Christ as his Prophet ? Did he accept 
the Scriptural doctrine of the atone- 
ment, and thus receive Christ as his 
great High Priest ? Did he bow to 
[6] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

the authority of Christ's teachings and 
thus accept Him as his King ? These 
questions, so important and interesting, 
we hope to answer in this discussion. 
Looking again at the word believe, 
we discover, in the second place, that 
it has not only a receptive, but also 
an assimilating capacity. What a 
person believes and thereby receives, 
he assimilates. It enters in and be- 
comes part of his thought and life. 
'^ Whereby are given unto us exceed- 
ing great and precious promises : that 
by these ye might be partakers of the 
divine nature." 2 Peter 1:4. ^' Now 
are we the sons of God, and it doth 
not yet appear what we shall be, but 
we know that when He shall appear we 
shall be like Him, for we shall see Him 
as He is. And every man that hath 
this hope in Him purifieth himself, 
even as He is pure." 1 John 3 : 2, 3. 
[7] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

Here is the assimilating process. It is 
gradual, constant, effective. '^ Changed 
into the same image, from glory to 
glory, even as by the Spirit of the 
Lord.'' 2 Cor. 3: 18. Did Shake- 
speare have any such experience? 
Were his last days different from what 
were the days of his youth and young 
manhood ? Did he grow more kind, 
attractive, loving, mellow ? This is 
the way a Christian grows. Was 
Shakespeare a Christian ? Read his . 
last plays and see. Read ^'The 
Tempest," '' Cymbeline," and '' Win- 
ter's Tale." Here we see Shakespeare 
as we are always wont to see the true 
child of God. A deep seriousness has 
come over his life. He is a different ^ 
man from what he was. He is living 
in retirement and hence pours out his 
soul in deeper, and if possible, more 
impressive religious tones. 
[8] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

The third element which we find 
in the word believe is energy. Read 
the eleventh chapter of Hebrews and 
see how true this is. '^ This is the 
victory that overcometh the world, 
even our faith/' 1 John 5 : 4. Did 
Shakespeare have faith ? Did this 
mighty grace stir his soul and energize 
his life? ^' Faith without works is 
dead, being alone." Jas. 2 : 17. 
'^ By their fruits ye shall know them." 
Matt. 7:15. Judged by this rule did 
Shakespeare have faith? We shall 
see. But why ask these questions? 
What difference does, it make to us 
whether Shakespeare was a believer or 
an agnostic? a Christian, or an 
infidel ? Much every way, but chiefly 
because he was, first, a great man, a 
great thinker, a great logician, a great 
poet, a great dramatist. He had a 
wonderful mind. A deep, keen 
[9] 



V 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

analytical power. He looked into 
the human heart, analyzed its contents 
and then portrayed them as they had 
never been portrayed before. Did 
Shakespeare do this as an agnostic, or 
skeptic, or as a believer ? Did he do 
it with, or without a knowledge of the 
Bible? It is an admitted fact that 
the Bible is a wonderful delineator of 
human character. It probes and 
analyzes the heart as no other book 
ever did. How it searched the three 
thousand on the Day of Pentecost. 
Acts 2 : 37. Like its divine author it 
knows what is in man and it reveals 
it. Not only so, but because of this 
deep insight into human lives and 
character, it becomes to the student 
who broods over its sacred pages an 
open window through which he looks 
down into the human soul. Did 
Shakespeare ever look through this 

[10] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

window ? Did he kindle his inspira- 
tion at this holy altar or at some 
other? This is an important ques- 
tion. We want to know where 
Shakespeare got his marvellotis under- 
standing of human nature. If he re- 
ceived it from a careful study of the 
Bible then we too can go to the same 
source and receive a like inspiration. 

The timeliness and importance of 
the question before us are seen, sec- 
ondly, in the fact that Shakespearean 
study is becoming so wide-spread in 
our schools as well as in our colleges 
and universities. If Shakespeare was 
an agnostic, if he had no faith in God 
or in the Word of God, it is high time 
that Christian fathers and mothers 
knew it. Certainly they do not want 
their children's minds filled with the 
thoughts and ideas of an atheist, or 
even a skeptic. If, however, on the 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

other hand, Shakespeare was a be- 
liever on Christ, if he loved and 
studied the Bible, and drew his in- 
spiration from it, then we and our 
children should know it, and conduct 
ourselves accordingly. So important 
is this question, it touches character 
and consequently influences destiny. 
A third reason for investigating 
Shakespeare's belief is found in the 
fact that his belief touches and has to 
do directly with the true basis and 
vital forces of literature. This is an 
age of literature. Everybody reads, 
while there is no end to the books and 
magazines and newspapers that are 
being published. On what does all 
this literature rest? What are its 
vital forces ? Are they Scriptural or 
anti-Scriptural? Christian or anti- 
Christian ? Do they spring from an 
intelligent faith in God and a hearty 

[12] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

acceptance of the Bible as His Word, 
or do they have some other source ? 

The age in which Shakespeare lived 
was an age of more or less toleration. 
'' During the last years of Elizabeth's 
reign/' says Gardiner, " the waves of 
external conflict lulled themselves to 
sleep." This was due in a large meas- 
ure to the overthrow of the Spanish 
Armada. When that was destroyed, 
the enemy fled and England had 
peace, so there was no effort made to 
circumscribe the liberties of the peo- 
ple, especially in a religious and intel- 
lectual way. Men were left to think, 
and read, believe and publish very 
much as they saw fit. 

It was secondly, an age of belief' 
rather than of unbelief. While there 
was some controversy about church 
polity, there was none as to the deeper 
things of faith. There was no question 
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Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

as to the existence of God, or the im- 
mortality of the human soul, or the 
genuineness of the Bible as the Reve- 
lation of God's will and purpose con- 
cerning men. These great doctrines 
were regarded as forever settled by 
the vast majority of the people. 

Thirdly, it was an age of Bible 
study. ^' England,'' says Greene, the 
historian, ^^ became the people of a 
book, and that book was the Bible." 
Everybody was reading it and talking 
about it. It was the one great book 
of the people. They read it aloud in 
public and in private, on days of toil 
and days of recreation. To live in 
such an age, an age of religious tolera- 
tion and faith and Bible study, was, 
to say the least, conducive to the 
formation of a strong religious char- 
acter. Did Shakespeare have such a 
character? What was his attitude 
[14] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

towards the Bible ? Did he accept it 
as the Word of God? Shakespeare 
was not a religious writer. He did 
not turn the stage into a pulpit and 
deliver sermons. This was not his 
mission. He was a dramatist and 
wrote for the stage. We must keep 
this fact in mind if we would form a 
true estimate of his character. Looked 
at in the light of this thought, what 
can we learn about his religious be- 
lief? 

'^ Take the entire range of English 
literature," says Bishop Wordsworth, 
'^put together our best authors, who 
have written upon subjects not pro- 
fessedly religious or theological, and 
we shall not find, I believe, in them 
all united,Qo much evidence of the 
Bible having been read and used, as 
we find in Shakespeare alone."^ This 
is certainly a wide statement. One 
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Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

that fills the intelligent reader with 
the most delightful thoughts. The 
greatest of poets and dramatists, the 
man who fathomed the human heart to 
its lowest depths, was one of the greatest 
of Bible students. Again and again 
does Shakespeare refer to such Scrip- 
tural truths as the Mosaic account of 
the creation, the temptation and fall, 
and the history of Cain and Abel. He 
also refers to the flood, the book of 
Job, the history of Jacob, Pharaoh, 
Jephtha, Samson, David, Herod, Ju- 
das, Pilate, Barabbas, Nebuchadnezzar, 
and nearly all the other great historical 
characters in the Bible, as well as to 
such places and events as Golgotha, 
the giving of the manna, and the law 
of inheritance. He refers to these not 
in any flippant way, but with rever- 
ence and thoughtfulness. His refer- 
ence to the greater light to rule the 
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Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

day and the lesser light to rule the 
night is very beautiful. In speaking 
of the Bible as a whole he sometimes 
calls it " God's Book/' at other times 
'' the Books of God," and then '' The 
Word." /;^The expression ^' God's 
Book " indicates Shakespeare's con- 
ception of the Bible as a divine revela- 
tion.v It is God's Book in the double 
sense, first, that He is the author of 
it ; and secondly, that it is a revela- 
tion of His character and will con- 
cerning men. The expression, ^^The 
Books of God," brings out the addi- 
tional thought that this revelation, 
which God has been pleased to make 
of Himself, is a progressive revelation. 
It was not made to one man alone, 
but to a large number of men living 
at different times and under different 
circumstances. It is a Book composed 
of many Books. These Books are not 
[17] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

separate. They do not stand apart 
but together. Hence he calls them 
'^The Word/' the one thought, the 
one revelation, the one divine life. 
Christ is the Word. The whole Book 
is about Him. He is its life, strength, 
and beauty. It is thus that Shake- 
speare conceived of the Bible. In his 
judgment, it has a most striking unity 
amid great diversities. It is one book 
composed of many books. God is its 
author, Christ its theme and centre, 
the Holy Ghost its inspiration and 
strength. If Shakespeare thus ac- 
cepted the Bible as the Word of God, 
if he read and studied and gathered 
his inspiration from it, what about 
Christ? How did Shakespeare regard 
Him? How did he look upon His 
life, character, and death ? Did he or 
did he not accept the doctrine of the 
atonement ? 

[18] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

In selecting different passages from 
the different plays of Shakespeare in 
answer to these questions, it is to be 
understood that while some of these 
passages may be taken from the 
mouths of other persons, Shakespeare 
put them there. They are his. They 
came from his own heart, and so ex- 
press his own faith, touching the 
Christ and His work. This will ap- 
pear most evident, I think, as we 
advance. Owing to our limited space 
we will have to be content with just 
one or two quotations from different 
plays. Take this from King Henry 
IV. '^ Those holy fields over whose 
acres walked those blessed feet, which, 
fourteen hundred years ago, were 
nailed for our advantage, on the bitter 
cross.'' Here we have Shakespeare's 
conception of the cross. He calls it 
the *^ bitter cross," and such it was 
[19] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

both in its origin and in its efFectSo 
Think of the envy, jealousy, hate and 
awful bitterness there must have been 
in the mind, and heart, and soul of 
him who conceived of torturing and 
putting a fellow being to death in 
that way. Think of the bitterness of 
the individual who was about to be 
crucified. Put yourself in his place. 
Imagine that this awful death was 
soon to be yours. What anguish of 
soul and bitterness of spirit would 
under such circumstances take hold 
upon you. You could not help 
it. No man could help it. How 
bitter also must it have been to 
the women who stood near the cross. 
It was then that the sword entered 
Mary's heart. Luke 2 : 35. Bitter, 
inexpressibly bitter was the cross. In 
this quotation we have also Shake- 
speare's conception of Christ. He calls 

[20] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

His soiled, dust covered, and blood- 
stained feet, ^^ blessed feet." If 
Christ's feet were blessed, how about 
His hands, head, heart, and soul? 
Were they not also blessed? Of 
course they were. They must have 
been. It was the blessed Christ who 
was nailed to the bitter cross, not for 
His advantage, or because He was an 
evil-doer, but for our advantage, yours 
and mine. In using the word '^ our " 
Shakespeare put himself among those 
for whom Christ died. '^ He died for 
me,'' says Shakespeare, '^ as well as 
for you." For ^^ our " advantage, mine 
as well as yours ; yours as well as 
mine. Shakespeare did not believe 
in a limited atonement. He had a 
larger and shall we not say a more 
Scriptural conception of the death of 
Christ. In proof of this turn to King 
Richard II. ^^ The world's ransom, 

[21] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

blessed Mary's Son/' The angel had 
called Mary blessed, Luke 1 : 28, and 
so she is, but Mary was not the world's 
ransom. She did not taste death for 
us. It was the blessed Christ who 
did this and He did it not merely for 
us but for the whole world. He is 
the world's ransom. So Shakespeare 
conceived, and so the Bible teaches. 
Heb. 2:9. '' Oh, then my best blood 
turn to an infected jelly, and my 
name be yoked with his that did be- 
tray the Best." We take this from 
Shakespeare's ^'Winter's Tale." Herein 
he speaks of Christ as being ^^ the 
Best." There are other good men, 
but Christ is the Best, the chief 
among ten thousand, the one alto- 
gether lovely. If Christ be the best, 
Judas, in the judgment of Shake- 
speare, was the worst. To have your 
name yoked with his was to descend 

[22] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

to the lowest degree of shame and 
ignominy. No man can go lower. 
Here he reaches the awful depths of 
sin and folly, disgrace and ruin. 

^' I charge you, you who hope to 
have redemption by Christ's dear 
blood, shed for our grievous sins, that 
you depart, and lay no hand on me.'' 
We find this in King Richard III. 
Shakespeare, like all the rest of us, 
had enemies. These enemies were not 
outside of the church, but within. 
They hoped for redemption by Christ's 
dear blood. Shakespeare appeals to 
this. He makes it the basis of his 
charge, and in doing SQLhe speaks of 
Christ's blood as ^[ dear blood shed for 
our grievous sins. '3 Notice again the 
word ^^ our." Shakespeare puts him- 
self among the rest. It was for ^' our 
grievous sins " that this dear blood 
was shed. We have not only sinned, 
[23] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

but we have grievously sinned. We 
have sinned against ^^ the Best," and 
^* the Best has shed His dear blood for 
our grievous sins.'' Could anj^ thought 
be more Scriptural than this ? Could 
any man, unless he was a believer, use 
such language? ^^ Now by the death 
of Him that died for us all." King 
Henry VI. Here we have again the 
universality of the benefits of Christ's 
death. He died for all, and not only 
so but His death was a most solemn 
death. There was a significance in it 
not to be found in any other death. 
Hence Shakespeare appeals to it as be- 
ing the most binding of all pledges. 
Turning to the Merchant of Venice we 
find these exceedingly important 
words touching the question before us. 
'^ Though justice be thy plea, consider 
this, that in the course of justice, none 
of us should see salvation." ^' By the 
[24] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

deeds of the law no flesh shall be justi- 
fied in His sight/' Rom. 3 : 20. How 
perfectly do these two thoughts agree. 
The one is as Scriptural as the other. 
Shakespeare undoubtedly had the 
Apostle's statement in mind when he 
wrote this. ^' Alas, alas," says Shake- 
speare, in '^ Measure for Measure," 
'^ why all souls that were, were forfeit 
once, and He that might the advantage 
but have took, found out the remedy." 
Shall we not say the only remedy? 
Christ's soul was never forfeited. He 
alone of all men needed not to repent 
for He had never sinned. This was 
Shakespeare's idea. Christ was to him 
the one perfect man who needed not 
to repent, or to ask for pardon, or to 
be forgiven or regenerated. '' He that 
might the advantage but have took, 
found out the remedy," the all suffi- 
cient remedy. Such are only a few of 
[25] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

the passages that might be gathered 
from Shakespeare^s plays, passages 
that show most clearly the way in 
which the greatest of dramatists re- 
garded the Christ. He evidently 
looked upon Christ as the one perfect 
man. His life was absolutely perfect. 
His character without spot, His death 
an efficacious atonement for the sins 
of the whole world. If Shakespeare 
thus accepted and studied the Bible as 
the Word of God, if he believed on 
Christ, and accepted Him as his own 
Saviour as well as the Saviour of the 
world, how did he look upon his fel- 
low man ? '^ This is the state of man, 
to-day he puts forth the tender leaves 
of hope, to-morrow blossoms and bears 
his blushing honours thick upon him, / 
the third day comes a frost, a killing ^ 
frost.'' King Henry VIII. Here we 
have Shakespeare's conception of the 
[26] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

weakness of man. He is a creature of ^ 
only a few days. '' What is your life ? " 
asks the Apostle. ^' It is even a 
vapour, that appeareth for a little time, 
and then vanisheth away." James 
4 : 14. Put over against this concep- 
tion of man's frailty, Shakespeare's 
conception of man's greatness. ^' What 
a piece of work is man : How noble 
in reason : How infinite in faculties : 
In form and moving how express and 
admirable : In action how like an 
angel : In apprehension how like a 
God." Hamlet. Who can read this 
statement without thinking of that of 
David, found in the eighth Psalm? 
'^ What is man that Thou art mind- 
ful of him, or the son of man that 
Thou visitest him ? For Thou hast 
made him a little lower than the 
angels (or as we have it in the Re- 
vised Version, lower than God) and 

n 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

hast crowned him with glory and 
honour." 

There are two sides to man. There 
is the earthly and the heavenly, the 
temporal and the eternal. Shake- 
speare fully recognized this fact. He 
also recognized the fact that man is a 
sinner, a conscious sinner. ^^ My con- 
science has a thousand several tongues, 
and every tongue brings in a several 
tale, and every tale condemns me for 
a villain.'' Richard III. ^^Con- 
science does make cowards of us all." 
Hamlet. This is the way in which 
Shakespeare regarded man. '' This 
look of thine will hurl my soul from 
heaven." Othello. The soul can be 
hurled from heaven. Shakespeare 
believed this, hence he says in King 
Henry VIII, '' Press not the fallen 
man too far." '' Blow, blow thou win- 
ter wind. Thou art not so unkind 

[28] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

as man's ingratitude." As you Like 
It. 

^^ How sharper than a serpent's tooth 
is it to have a thankless child.'' King 
Lear. ''A wretched soul, bruised 
with adversity." Comedy of Errors. 
Shakespeare believed that the soul 
may not only be wretched, but that it 
is wretched unless it has accepted 
Christ. Christ is the only remedy 
for the sin-sick soul. '^ Our doubts," 
he says, '^ are traitors and make us 
lose the great good we oft might win." 
Measure for Measure. '^ We know 
what we are, but we know not what 
we may be." Hamlet. How true is 
all this. How perfectly does it accord 
with what the Bible teaches concern- 
ing man and what we ourselves know 
of him. Man is a fallen being, and 
yet a being who through the riches of 
divine grace may be restored to the 
[29] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

fellowship and image of God. ^^ There's 
a divinity/' says Shakespeare, ^' that 
shapes our ends rough hew them how 
we will/' Hamlet. Shakespeare be- 
lieved thus in an overruling Provi- 
dence. God is on the throne. We 
can reach Him by the way of faith 
and prayer. A short time before his 
death, Shakespeare made his will. 
After the introduction he says, ^^ I 
commit my soul into the hands of 
God, my Creator, hoping and assur- 
edly believing through the only mer- 
its of Jesus Christ my Saviour, to be 
made partaker of life everlasting, and 
my body to the earth whereof it is 
made." Here as elsewhere Shake- 
speare speaks of himself as having a 
soul and a body. His soul through 
faith in Christ partakes of life everlast- 
ing. His body goes back to earth 
whence it came. God he regards as his 
[30] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

Creator and Christ his only Saviour. 
Depending alone on the merits of 
Christ, he commends his soul to God. 
This is what David did. This is what 
Christ Himself did. This is what we 
all ought to do. 

Christ is the only Saviour. He 
saves and saves unto the uttermost. 
Not only did Shakespeare believe and 
confess this again and again in his 
plays, as we have seen, but when he 
came down to death, as we must all 
come some of these days, he made 
this one article of his faith the com- 
fort and strength of his soul. He 
died as he had lived, believing, not in 
his good works, but in Christ alone 
for his salvation. 

Such being the faith and religious 
belief of Shakespeare, he being a dil- 
igent student of the Word, a follower 
of Christ, it becomes a great joy to us 
[31] 



Religious Belief of Shakespeare 

to know that a new interest is being 
taken in the study of his immortal 
works. Better carefully read Shake- 
speare and become perfectly acquainted 
with the force, strength, and beauty 
of the rich and pure English which 
he ever employs, than to waste your 
time and belittle your intellect by 
reading so much of the trash of the 
present hour. 



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